A helicopter acts as the Easter Bunny to deliver eggs to the field below for the Greenbriar Church’s Egg Drop Celebration Saturday on the Darton College campus. More than 1,500 children and parents were ready to scoop up the eggs.

ALBANY, Ga. -- ALBANY — Santa has his sleigh and now the Easter Bunny has a helicopter.

Greenbriar Church hosted a gala event Saturday at Darton College’s campus involving more than 1,500 children and parents and 15,000 eggs dropped from a helicopter as a finale.

“This is our 2012 Egg Drop,” said Tim Bice, church pastor. “It is our way of reaching out to the community to give back and build bridges to the community.”

Bice emphasized the children were divided into age groups and kept back from the egg drop zone as a safety measure. The eggs dropped from the helicopter were plastic and carried stickers, candy or golden coins good for prizes such as $20, $100 bills and an iPod.

Sarah Ward was the lucky winner who gathered up the egg with the iPod winning numbered golden coin. She smiled broadly as she described the Egg Drop morning as a lot of fun.

“I loved it,” Ward said, “It was just so much fun to see the eggs come out of the helicopter and I won the iPad!”

The helicopter took several swings by the Darton intramural field at about 11:20 a.m. dropping eggs each time. Children waited eagerly at the start line for the helicopter to finish dropping eggs.

It was “Ready...Set... Go!” and the children took off across the field gathering eggs. It took less than five minutes until there were only a couple eggs left on the ground.

Children and their parents smiled whether or not they won prizes or just took part.

“We saw the ad for the Eggdrop online,” said Jason Ranew, at the event with his son John. “It just looked like fun to do on a Saturday.”

The morning was a family day for Bonita Brown, her daughter Desirae Jackson, and her children Ja’keila Jackson and Ma’kaiya Moten.

“There isn’t much to do and this is really nice,” Brown said. “I’m glad we came.”